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The Marta Mathews diaries |
| By
Marta Mathews |
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September 15, 2003
The day of the competition is fast approaching and I'm continuing to freak
out.... This premature state of anxiety is driving me nuts.
I've never experienced it before. I should be more confident my fourth time around and
I can't quite figure out why I'm feeling the way I do.
I had a really good weekend diet wise.
I also felt very strong at the gym.
In about a week from now I will drop my Creatine supplementation and focus
on lifting lower weights but with more reps.
I still look relatively smooth
from all the extra carbohydrates and probably the Creatine as well, but at
the same time I look solid and strong.
Everything is more or less going
according to my plan. My calves are starting to come out, and so are my
shoulders and back.
I've been hitting my abdominal muscles pretty hard over
the last couple of weeks as well and although they are not completely out
yet, I definitely feel their presence and I am confident they will be making
an appearance as soon as I drop the Creatine. So we will wait and see.
Today was a typical Monday. No cardio this morning due to my work schedule.
I did a twenty-minute warm up on an elliptical machine this evening prior to
my leg workout. I performed six exercises with four to five sets per
exercise. I felt really
energized and managed to complete my workout in one
hour while lifting about twenty pounds heavier than normal on all of the
exercises. When I was drinking my post-workout shake I literally felt my
muscles soaking up every drop of the sweet liquid... Definitely an amazing
workout today!
September 17, 2003
I was reading an article on the importance of calcium consumption today and
I realized I have not been consuming nearly enough of it! Turns out that
lack of this mineral is one of the leading factors contributing to my
insomnia problems. There are numerous other reasons why I should be
consuming more of it as calcium not only promotes healthy and strong bones,
but also plays a critical role in ones performance at the gym. Lack of calcium causes weak muscle relaxation. Weak muscle relaxation leads to
unsatisfactory muscle contraction and bad contractions equals bad workouts
and no muscle growth! This was enough to make me decide to drink more skim
milk and most definitely keep sticking to my pre-workout meal consisting of
fat free pressed cottage cheese which I recently decided to give up in
favour of sweet potatoes and some other form of protein. I'm not giving up
sweet potatoes by any means, but I'm also not going to give up my dose of
calcium from this point on either.
September 18, 2003
I'm not sure what my problem was today, but I found myself STARVING all day
even though I consumed over 1600 calories before 3:00 p.m.! I did forty
minutes on stationery bike for my cardio this morning and I did not burn any
more calories than I would have if I used a treadmill instead. My back
workout last night was not any different than any other workout and I really
can't figure out where my hunger pains came from. It is now 10:00 p.m. and
over the last seven hours I'm sure I've eaten an additional 1500 calories -
all from low-glycemic carbohydrates and clean protein sources, but still
much more food than I would normally consume. Perhaps this might have
something to do with my body's anticipation of my menstrual cycle - which is
about the only logical explanation I can think of. I'm afraid to go on
fitday.com to enter the rest of my caloric intakes..
I realized I have been lifting weights every day for well over a week now
and therefore I decided to take a break from lifting this afternoon. In
fact, I'm planning to stay away from the gym all day tomorrow as well and
only resume my training regimen on Saturday. I'm so used to automatically
going to the gym every day after work and always on the weekends that
sometimes a month would go by before I realized my body needed a break.
Lately I've been making a conscious effort to take a break though as in the
long run the rest will do my muscles a lot more good than bad.
September 19, 2003
As planned last evening, I did not go to the gym today and won't be going
this afternoon either. I've had my breakfast as usual and once the three
hours were up for my second meal I was far from being hungry. Obviously the
extra food last night and no cardio this morning had everything to do with
this. Nevertheless I did not skip my second meal and will not be skipping
any meals for the rest of the day either. My portions will probably be a bit
smaller than usual (by approximately 100 calories per meal) but my meals
will continue to be perfectly balanced
and clean. Diet is one thing I am not
taking a break from today.
This weekend will most definitely be a challenge as I'm going to be
travelling and I always find it so easy to cheat when I'm away from home. But
I will have to persevere this time, as I can't afford to make any mistakes
with my competition only six weeks away. I was looking at my pictures taken
by Michael Palmer following my Molson Indy competition and I could not help
being impressed by my own physique at the time.
I simply looked great and it
's hard to believe I had that look
just mare two months ago!
Beating my own self at The Man Show will definitely be challenging, but I'm determined to
do it and more than ever I will have to keep my goal in mind when cheating
opportunities arise this weekend.
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